Andrea Orcel and the strangely enormous benefit payments

Unlike Eric Bommensath and Tom King at Barclays, Andrea Orcel is very popular as the chief executive of UBS’s investment banking. Today’s UBS remuneration report contains a gushing appraisal of Orcel’s achievements:

Unlike Eric Bommensath and Tom King at Barclays, Andrea Orcel is very popular as the chief executive of UBS’s investment banking. Today’s UBS remuneration report contains a gushing appraisal of Orcel’s achievements: he has been an “effective leader,” who drove “positive performance,” in a “successful year,” with “strong focus,” resulting in “significant achievements”, and “strong performance,” etc. etc.

Such is his popularity that Orcel was paid CHF11.4m ($13m) last year. This was more than his boss Sergio Ermotti – chief executive of the whole of UBS. Sergio received a mere CHF10.7m.

As the Wall Street Journal points out, Orcel’s latest award follows a $6.4m top-up payment last year to buyout the stock he left behind at Bank of America. The Italian-born dealmaker is doing very well for himself indeed.

A closer look at Orcel’s pay packet. however, reveals that a disproportionate amount of Orcel’s windfall was comprised of ‘benefit’ payments. While Ermotti received CHF127k in benefits for 2013, Orcel received CHF727k. This was more than the cost of benefit payments to the entire UBS board in 2012. Without these giant benefits, Ermotti and Orcel would have been paid almost equably.